From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Dec 18 05:25:20 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3C105A4A4E1 for ; Fri, 18 Dec 2015 05:25:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "wonkity.com", Issuer "wonkity.com" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0E766163D for ; Fri, 18 Dec 2015 05:25:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id tBI5PCMN050673 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:25:12 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id tBI5P9bK050670; Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:25:12 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:25:09 -0700 (MST) From: Warren Block To: John McDonnell cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: POS system trashing hard drives during install In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.20 (BSF 67 2015-01-07) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:25:12 -0700 (MST) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2015 05:25:20 -0000 On Thu, 17 Dec 2015, John McDonnell wrote: > The installer boots up and runs through the process perfectly fine. > But upon rebooting after install, the system locks up. It runs the > memory check and displays the connected IDE devices (the hard drive > and CD-ROM drive) and the keyboard is still semi-responsive, I can hit > Del or F9 and it will display "Entering BIOS" or "Loading Boot Device > List" but that is all that happens. It doesn't actually go into the > BIOS or do anything and CTRL+ALT+DEL doesn't restart the system, I > have to hard power down. If I disconnect the hard drive at this point, > the system boots fine. It took some looking to find this description of the problem in the post. Some systems do stupid things based on what they find on the hard disk. Lenovo and IBM before them did this, for example. Still do, in some cases. It is not just a GPT thing, they did stupid things with MBR partitions also. The idea that old systems can't boot from GPT is incorrect. GPT has the PMBR, a backwards-compatible MBR booting mechanism. Some systems require a system partition for the BIOS. Given that this is a custom system, there might be some kind of security information stored on the drive. If it were me, I would use gpart to look at the partitioning on the XP drive. It is likely MBR, but the number, type, and size of partitions could be a clue.